Going the Distance: Basketball Seniors Reflect on Four-Year Careers in Manoa

Coming from disparate areas of the globe, Imani Perez and Harry Rouhliadeff travelled similar paths to find a sense of home in Hawai‘i.

It was the summer of 2022 when Rouhliadeff made the trek from Australia to join the University of Hawai‘i men’s basketball team. Around the same time, Perez began the process of adjusting to new surroundings in her move from Denver to Manoa heading into her freshman year with the Rainbow Wahine.

Having established themselves as contributors from the jump, both UH forwards are now closing in on the conclusions of four-year basketball careers in Manoa, making them part of a rapidly shrinking cohort of student-athletes as player movement continues to grow as a pervasive theme in college sports.

As Senior Night approaches for both, Rouhliadeff and Perez — both Kinesiology majors — value the distinction of spending the duration of their careers in Hawai‘i as they’ve developed into leaders for their respective teams.

“I have an unbelievable amount of pride to be a Hawai‘i athlete, and to be here for four years has been such a blessing,” Rouhliadeff said. “I could have had opportunities to leave, but I knew I had unfinished business here. I didn’t want to leave and I’m very thankful that I didn’t because I feel everything is turning out the way I wanted it to.”

Mainstays in the UH frontcourts, Perez and Rouhliadeff have played central roles in seasons defined by resurgence and resilience for their teams. Rouhliadeff’s reliability and leadership helped the Rainbow Warriors rebound from missing the conference tournament a year ago to contending for the Big West regular-season title this season. As the senior member of a youthful roster, Perez remained steadfast amid an 0-5 start to Big West play to lead the ’Bows to a 10-1 run entering the final two weeks of the schedule.

“It’s pretty special finding a place you can stay for four years and feel comfortable and find that family feeling,” Perez said. “(Rainbow Wahine head coach Laura Beeman) and the staff and the whole community in Hawai‘i have been really helpful in just making me feel comfortable here and making me feel welcome in general and just being that big support system that we have here on the island.”

Elevating her Game

It was a volleyball match during her recruiting visit that first gave Perez a feel for the sports culture she would step into upon signing with UH.

“Just being here and seeing how much support other teams got just by watching the volleyball game, I was like, ‘this is insane,’” she recalled.

Perez joined the Rainbow Wahine as a promising freshman who was admittedly unsure about her relationship with the game coming out of high school. By the time the 2022-23 season ended with a Big West Championship and a matchup against LSU in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, her resolve had returned to fuel a career that will rank among the most impactful of Beeman’s 14 years as head coach.

Perez will leave Manoa as one of the top defensive players in program history. A two-time Big West All-Defensive Team selection, Perez entered UH's top 10 in blocked shots this season and is just the eighth to surpass 100 in a career.

But rim protecting is just one facet of her defensive presence. At 6-foot-4, her ability to guard multiple positions — often drawing the opponent’s top threat — has been a focal point of UH defense that has ranked among the nation’s stingiest for much of her career.

“She is somebody who is going to be irreplaceable for us on defense,” Beeman said. “Someone may come in and be a great defender, but they won’t do it the way she’s been able to do it, to be able to guard posts and guards. And she does it selflessly all the time. … She probably is the best defender I’ve ever coached in my college career.”

Yet Perez has proven to be anything but one dimensional. She entered the final homestand on pace to rank in the top five in program history in field-goal percentage and was part of one of the signature plays of UH’s back-to-back Big West Championship titles. As a freshman in 2023, she delivered an assist to Daejah Phillips for the decisive bucket with three seconds left in a 61-59 win over UC Santa Barbara in the championship game.

“I had my ups and downs, obviously coming in was a bit of a struggle for me,” Perez said. “I was a little iffy on basketball, but (the coaches) definitely changed my mind and helped me love the game of basketball again and just feel more confident in myself as a player and get back into loving basketball fully.”

Rising from Down Under

As a high schooler in Brisbane, Australia, Rouhliadeff was looking for a place to play as COVID restrictions limited his exposure to college coaches. A connection with UH assistant coach and fellow Aussie Brad Davidson led him to sign with the ’Bows and he quickly earned a role in the UH rotation as a freshman.

Going into the final two weeks of the regular season, he has appeared in 113 of a possible 124 games in a UH uniform and started 40 games over the last two seasons.

“To be able to play that amount of games in front of these great fans and in different venues in America, I’ve had the most incredible experience just competing and playing with my brothers alongside me,” Rouhliadeff said. “It’s been a wild ride and I’m loving every second of it.”

Rouhliadeff’s production has steadily increased with each season with the ’Bows, jumping to 10.5 points and 4.8 rebounds per game in the late stages of his senior season. As his on-court role  has increased, so have his leadership skills leading to his current position as team captain.

“When I first got here, Kamaka Hepa and Samuta Avea were my captains and they really showed me what it was to be a leader,” Rouhliadeff said. “Every year I kept looking at who was the leader and who I can learn from. What you see from me is what I got from them — Kamaka, Samuta, JoVon (McClanahan), Bernardo (da Silva), Justin McKoy — all those guys have taught me a whole lot.

“As a freshman I didn’t really have much to say, I was just more observing and seeing what I could learn and that’s how you develop a voice. You’ve got to learn, observe and that’s when you can speak up and you have more knowledge about the game.”

Now as the longest tenured member of the roster, Rouhliadeff has in turn taken on the duty of providing leadership for a team heavily comprised of newcomers who have meshed to push the ’Bows to the front of the Big West race.

“Just watch how he carries himself, how he handles himself, how he’s immersed himself in the culture of the program and the university and you can see how much joy he has with it,” Rainbow Warriors head coach Eran Ganot said. “It’s refreshing, it’s been impactful for us in so many ways, not just on the floor, and I think it’ll be impactful for us for years to come because that’s ultimately what a legacy is.

“I think it’s why we’ve bounced back from tough losses; because he’s the captain, he’s the leader, he shows the way. Doesn’t get too high, doesn’t get too low. He’s a believer.”

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